Project Overlord
by Naamah Beherit
Summary: ...it all seemed harmless.


_A/N: I'm currently fighting my artist's block with beer and more books than usually. This text is probably the first thing in about a month that made me think the block's gradually fading away._

_It's inspired by _Overlord_ DLC, so if you haven't played it yet and don't want to read spoilers, push the "Back" button._

_It's not a novelisation – those are boring. I usually focus on things the game/movie/etc. didn't cover: feelings, emotions and character's inner thoughts. There are also few signs of my shameless _licentia poetica – _as always. Rating is caused by language, elements of violence and... Well, if you finished _Overlord_, you should know why._

_Enjoy._

_Disclaimer: I don't own BioWare._

_

* * *

_

Cerberus was trouble.

Commander Shepard knew that for the first moment their ways crossed. She had made their acquaintance two years ago, during her hunt after Saren. The first contact had ended in a rather bold and inventive way, and she had gladly left a huge hole in the ground behind her. After that, some uncharted planets had been enriched by a few more new craters. A smile on her face had been bigger each time.

The knowledge of Cerberus hadn't been a widely known information, not when she had been a mere rookie receiving the N7 training. It had been rather one of those shameful secrets of which everybody knew, but nobody wanted to talk about. Thus she had learnt everything on her own – how those terrorists had been conducting tests on rachni and the Thorian creepers. How they had turned a human settlement into the useless ruin overrun by the husks.

How they had killed Admiral Kahoku.

Considering all of that, Shepard had formed an clear opinion about the most infamous human group before they were publicly regarded as a terrorist organisation. And the fact that they resurrected her didn't change anything. As long as she needed the Illusive Man and his intel, she would play along with him. After that... well, he better be damn well hidden, because she was going to hunt him down and make him dance in a rain of bullets.

One bullet for Kahoku. The next few ones for those anonymous colonists. A Widow shot for making her go through the horrors of coming back to life. Also for Jack's childhood. For compromising safety of the Migrant Fleet. And now for playing with the AI technology as well.

Shepard had a feeling that her list could become infinite.

* * *

Aite was a beautiful world, almost untouched by civilisation. Its forests, full of life, were crossed by the soothing streams and bathed in the soft sunlight. A silhouette of the moon visible in the sky seemed to be dangerously close to the planet, but the sky itself was also astounding. Shepard couldn't remember being on a planet with rings – most of those having them were gas giants, so she was unable to land there and admire the view.

And now, when she finally landed on one of the planets with rings, she couldn't take a while to play a tourist on vacations. Despite the Hammerhead's VI reminding them about 'pleasant views nearby', all she could think about was that sick Cerberus project. Did anyone even hear about merging the human mind with a VI interface? Damn, and to think that someone would actually volunteer as a test subject, like Dr. Archer's brother had...

Shepard scowled, recalling the chief scientist of the project. Gavin Archer. Something was wrong, but she couldn't explain what it was. Maybe she just didn't trust him, and that wasn't really surprising – she didn't trust any of Cerberus members. Her trigger-itchy finger, activated by the very word 'Cerberus', forbade her to do so. However, she intended to obey her gut feeling and be extremely cautious while dealing with Archer. There was something weird in the air, a veil and an aura of secrecy, and she could bet that if the details of the project became a galaxy-wide known information, the outcome would be disastrous.

Again, that was true with any of Cerberus operations.

Well, whatever she would find in the Atlas station, the main facility of the project, she was going to send information and data to the Council. That was their agreement, after all, and her official cover if anyone asked about her ties with Cerberus. She was on the top secret mission from the Council, yes, just another Spectre business, thank you, but no more interviews today, go to hell and leave me alone.

Truth to be told, their little agreement that allowed her to regain her Spectre status, became the actual mission of gathering intel about Cerberus. Shepard was pretty sure that the Illusive Man would one day find out about that, but hopefully it would be too late for him to change anything. In her opinion, he deserved to be punished.

She had to admit, though, that he had a style and imagination. That was unquestionable, especially when they entered the Prometheus station, which was nothing else but a disabled geth dropship. Most of the people would tear it apart to recover the technology and then blow remains up sky high. That would be understandable. But not the Illusive Man. No. He repurposed the ship, turned it into a mockery of a base, and forced his people to work inside it.

"We fight the geth for such a long time" Garrus mused, "but we have never been inside one of their ships."

"Believe me, I'd gladly live _without _this experience."

The fact that even more weird assignment – getting on board of a derelict Reaper – was scheduled for the next day, didn't make the current situation any better. The Prometheus station was creepy, period. Shepard wished she had eyes on her back, in addition to the usual ones – all those inactive geth lying everywhere were just a disaster waiting to happen. Could it help, she would just destroy the ship. But it couldn't, and before they reached the main computer to override the lockdown, she was the frustration made flesh. It wasn't paranoia. It wasn't fear. It was the experience and knowledge that nothing was easy while dealing with the geth.

Of course she was right.

"Just like old times!" Garrus grinned as they were trying to leave the ship. The hordes of the inactive geth weren't inactive anymore, but there was nothing simpler than killing the geth. And despite the bullets cutting the air, Shepard had to give him a faint smile.

She just missed the old times so badly.

* * *

The Atlas station was... well, not exactly what she expected. Archer's words created a mental image of dark corridors and bloodbath, dead victims and victorious army of infected geth. Instead, they found relatively few bodies and even less active geth. The presence of the rogue VI was extremely obvious, though, and not just because of the flickering lights, or the ever-present, faint green glow coming from every single machine, computer, or even access panel on the doors. Those unintelligible things the VI kept shouting at them were becoming more and more frequent, and Shepard was unwillingly wondering what would the words be if she understood them. A threat? Obscenities? Warnings?

She knew it was pointless to even start guessing, but it was obvious that they weren't alone in here. She got used to EDI's presence, but the entity inside the Atlas station was completely different. One could almost touch its power and it was easy to forget about what – or rather who – the rogue VI was. David Archer, Gavin's brother. Shepard couldn't imagine the reasons that made him want to merge his mind with the geth neural network. Could it be a lust for power? Or maybe just an unhealthy curiosity? Was the process even safe?

Shit, she knew that some of Cerberus members would do anything to please the Illusive Man, so maybe _that_ was the answer. Xenophobic fanaticism. She saw such people.

Shepard cursed under her breath and looked at Kasumi, working on an apparently uninfected console. Goto noticed it a while ago and wanted to see if she could find any useful information.

"Kasumi? Those databases you stole from Cerberus..."

"What about them?" the thief averted her gaze from her omni-tool and glanced at Commander.

"Was there anything about this project?"

She really didn't like to throw herself into a place and situation she knew nothing about. It recently became the routine, though.

"No, nothing" Kasumi shook her head. "But I've got something interesting in here."

"_Archer's Log 135.3: For years my brother has been a handicap. That changed today. His autistic mind is the breakthrough I've been looking for – he can communicate with the geth! Such a tremendous grasp of mathematics. It seems serendipity is alive well in the 22nd century."_

Shepard felt a cold shiver running down her spine. Did he say 'handicap'? David Archer, the big, bad Overlord, a human consciousness turned into a computer virus, was _autistic_?

Bloody hell, the implications were painfully obvious.

"Are..." she had to swallow, for her throat became horribly dry, "are there more of those?"

Kasumi nodded and tapped her omni-tool. Commander was aware of Garrus' surprised gaze focused on her, but she didn't turn around to explain. Maybe he just didn't know what autism was. Or maybe he wanted the assurance that she came to the same conclusion as he did.

"_Archer Log 157.8: Unless he sees results, the Illusive Man is shutting us down next week. I have no choice. I am going to tap David directly into the geth neural network and see if he can influence them. Danger should be negligible. David might even enjoy it."_

"'Danger should be negligible'?" Vakarian repeated incredulously. "By the spirits, it was his brother!"

Shepard wanted to answer, but sudden pain of her hands stopped her. She looked down and realised she was clenching her fists. Funny, she didn't register doing so. She gathered her willpower and forced herself to flex and relax the muscles of her fingers. They obeyed, reluctantly, but obeyed. There was something in her soul, something far worse than anger. It was a cold fury. She was lied to. Deceived. Played.

Fuck, she knew Archer was hiding something.

The next time she saw him, she wasn't going to be nice. Not at all. Cerberus was trouble, he was a Cerberus member and hence her trigger-itchy finger was eager to finish the problem once and for all.

"What he said about David being autistic..." Garrus said quietly, interrupting her thoughts. "It's some kind of a disease, right?"

"Yes" Shepard rubbed her temples. "It's a mental disorder. David was probably unable to make decisions on his own. Thus he couldn't 'volunteer' as a test subject. That fucker Archer lied to us and I don't like this."

"So what's our next step? Going back to Archer and killing him?"

"No" that word came out with a heavy sigh. "What's going on here, has to be stopped. We don't have another choice. After that... I won't shoot him on sight. I'll mutilate him first."

She left the room, accompanied by David's angry growl sounding from the speakers in the entire complex. Did he still have enough consciousness left to form words and sentences, or was it just a noise, remnants of the human thoughts transcribed into numbers 0 and 1 of the binary code?

Hell if she knew. And she couldn't even ask.

Fortunately, the door to the control room was located right after the room they left. Shepard came inside and hesitated for a moment. She would like to have time she didn't. Time to consider what to do and find the best solution. There were situations that could be resolved by just shooting things, but it wasn't one of them. Current situation required a good plan, not an improvisation, but – at it usually happened – the reality had other thoughts in mind.

"Get ready" she said to Kasumi and Garrus as she approached the command console. "I wouldn't be surprised if this button summoned a Reaper."

False bravado. Jokes. It was her usual behaviour when she was stressed, or scared. Right now, she was scared, so she just pushed that damned button and braced herself for the worst.

When her omni-tool changed its colour from orange to green, she knew it was going to be bad. That was her last thought before her cybernetic implants sang an aria to pain inside her body and tore her consciousness away from her.

* * *

_Cerberus is ultimately about humanity_, the Illusive Man said.

Shepard didn't believe in his words. It was nothing more but a slogan, political bullshit addressed to those stupid people considering joining the organisation. She had never believed in slogans. And she knew well that Cerberus leader never hesitated to achieve what he wanted – even if it meant using and killing humans. The same humans they were supposed to be placed on Cerberus pedestal, so she was fully aware that the Illusive Man was lying – people turned into husks had been the best example. They had been only an experiment – and no way in hell she believed that being a husk was in the humanity's best interest.

_My people are valuable for me_, he said.

Maybe. Or maybe not. As the time was passing by, Shepard was more and more sure that it was researches what the Illusive Man valued more than anything else. If his people were doing their job, it was acceptable. If not, they became expendable. Or they became test subjects used in the endless river of experiments. Innocent people as well – like those marines from Akuze.

Like David Acrher.

When Shepard activated the access console, the virus gained control of her implants and put her mind into something what seemed to be a virtual reality built of orange and green light, with glimpses of the real world beneath the floating colours. Apparently, David reprogrammed cybernetics in her eyes and ears to communicate with her in his own way, altered by the connection with the neural network.

Because she was able to understand him now. Oh yes, she was.

"QUIET PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!"

If she had any doubts did David volunteer, that was the only answer she needed. And another of Archer's logs.

"_Archer Log 164.4: I'd be lying if I said that no harm could come to David. His autistic mind is just as alien to me as an actual alien. Anything could happen when we plug him in. But I have to try don't I?"_

As she was getting deeper and deeper towards the heart of the facility, unspeakable colours surrounding her sometimes became flickering images, mostly of Archer and David. Shepard realised that the scenes were the memories of the autistic man, woven of bits and lights, presenting her the truth.

Archer's frustrations. David endless muttering about some kind of equations. The first time he had mimicked the geth language. The moment when Gavin had compared his brother to a human supercomputer. A few researchers gathered around him, talking, and David sitting behind them, swaying back and forth and begging them to be quiet.

She took the elevator to the lower level, because she had no time to wait for Garrus and Kasumi – she had a faint memory of door closing behind her and leaving them inside the control room. She would like to have Garrus by her side now, but she couldn't wait. Besides, she was almost sure that David wouldn't attack her. Assumptions were dangerous, she knew that, but she had to try.

"MAKE IT STOP!"

Shepard wasn't sure what to expect, and she was a bit surprised by a few hubs linked to the main machine in the centre of the chamber. It looked like a glowing green sphere, surrounded by many rotating kinetic barriers. No sign of David, and yet she was certain that he was somewhere here. She just hoped he wasn't trapped inside that spherical force field.

There was another memory – of Archer and the others plugging David into the some kind of device. She couldn't see the details, but the recorded cry was enough.

_David doesn't want to be here!_

Then the geth had attacked the researchers and thus the project became the failure. She couldn't be more happy, because those Cerberus fuckers got what they deserved. Or, well, maybe she could – she was going to blow these facilities up, after all. Just the next holes in the ground.

Her omni-tool alerted her about an attempt to download the virus into the _Normandy_'s computer. Shepard didn't want to wait and see if EDI would successfully defend the ship, so she destroyed the hubs. Her implants started hurting like hell – she forgot about how David took control of them – but she gritted her teeth, managed to take a few steps back and shoot at the green sphere with the Widow. A burning lightning of pain sent her to her knees, blind, deaf and screaming. It took her a while to regain her senses, but when she finally opened her eyes, the world around her was completely normal. No sign of green and orange reality. No bits and codes running on the surface of the walls.

"Quiet please make it stop..."

David's voice was strained, quiet and unclear, and Shepard looked at the place where the green sphere was. She was rising to her feet, but what she saw made her fall to her knees again.

The age of Archer's brother was impossible to determine, for he had an innocent face of child – the face now twisted in pain. He was hanging in the air, naked, supported only by countless wires impaled into his body. There were old smudges of blood around them, but the tissue of the skin was dark and apparently dead. The bigger tube was stuck into his mouth and the back of his head. The eyelids of his eyes were being opened for some reason, and a liquid that wasn't tears was slowly running down his cheeks. Shepard was sure that keeping the eyes exposed had blinded him a few hours after the plug-in.

That was the ultimate victim of the project Overlord, and the only reason they had treated him like this was his ability of mathematically understanding the geth language, and a desire to please the Illusive Man with good results of the experiment. They had treated him like a thing, not like a living being. Cerberus was about humanity? Bullshit. Cerberus lost its humanity long ago. Maybe they had never had it.

_Project Lazarus_, her mind whispered. She shivered. Was her situation any different? How could she know in what way they had treated _her_? She heard the logs in that station, she had also been a 'subject'. The only advantage was that she had been dead those days and thus couldn't remember what they had been doing to her.

She activated her radio, trying to get up in the process. "Joker, send a shuttle ASAP. Tell Chakwas and Mordin to take everything they can, there's an emergency."

"Something else, Commander?"

_Think, Jane, think. This is the geth technology._

"I need Tali here."

"Aye aye, ma'am. Who's hurt?"

"Doesn't matter. Program the course to the Grissom Academy and be ready to activate the FTL drive as soon as we're back."

He didn't waste time on futile comments this time, and Shepard approached the machinery carefully. The tortured man flinched and wept.

"It's okay, David" she said as quietly and calmly as she could. "Nobody's gonna hurt you anymore."

_Quiet please make it stop._

"I'll make it stop, David."

* * *

Archer ran inside telling her to wait, but she didn't stop disabling the wires that seemed to be safe to be disabled without much technical knowledge. He started apologising, then yelling at her, then apologising again. But it was way too late for apologies.

"Seeing David communicating with the geth... It all seemed harmless."

Shepard growled and grabbed the collar of his uniform. "Look at him. _LOOK AT HIM_! Harmless? You did _this_ to your own brother! He's never going to be the same person again. You sacrificed his happiness for your own ambition!"

_Kill him, Jane._

_Shut up, brain. Not in front of this poor guy._

_Later then._

_Later. Yes._

"I..." Archer looked at his brother and stooped. "What I did to David was unethical. Now I see this. Let me take care of him. Please."

_I'd fall in love with a Reaper first._

"No way in hell" she snapped at him. "I'm taking him with me. Don't even try to find him."

Archer, suddenly exhibiting quite misplaced brotherly love, reached for his pistol, but was too slow. Shepard punched him right into the face and was rewarded with a satisfying sound of a breaking nose. Gavin was fighting to stay conscious, but failed and fell onto the floor, bleeding. She exhaled. That felt good.

Moments later she heard the elevator again. This time it was Garrus and Kasumi, and Shepard felt a pang of relief. She wanted to be sure that she wasn't imagining this whole situation. Goto's tears were her assurance. It was real. It was all real.

She was keeping a good shape until Chakwas, Tali and Mordin arrived. Until they managed to unplug David from the neural network. Until she heard his strained, hoarse voice, when he repeated his brother's words. Then she hid her face in her hands and leaned against Garrus, looking for comfort, no longer capable of playing the strong Commander Shepard – not here, not now. Few tears flowed from her eyes as she felt the turian's arms closing around her.

"It all seemed harmless..."


End file.
